


Cache Cleared

by stellennium



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Memory Loss, Post-Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5549552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellennium/pseuds/stellennium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"When did I really meet Blooky? I know I met them face to face for the first time after darling little Frisk broke the barrier, but--"</p>
<p>"Wait, wait! What do you mean you first met them then?" </p>
<p>The consequences of a ghost going corporeal ran far deeper than Alphys realized.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cache Cleared

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes all I want to do is hurt people emotionally before I bleed out for a week. I'm sorry. 
> 
> Not betaed, barely proofread, please let me know if there's any weird grammar or spelling aside from Napstablook's forced lowercase dialog.

It was supposed to be a normal interview. Alphys tuned in just in time to watch Mettaton appear on a human television show. Every single interview was pretty much the same; whoever was hosting the show would grill him about anything and everything about him, from how he was made to what kind of hair products he used. Mettaton would take every subtle jab with good grace and follow up all their questions without breaking a metaphorical sweat. But this time, Alphys could tell this host was trying to spring something to throw Mettaton off his game. She was digging into highly personal territory and even Mettaton's best deflections weren't enough to stop her. 

"Speaking of your band," she said. "You and your mixer Napsterbloke are quite close." 

Mettaton frowned. "Why yes, _Napstablook_ is a very good friend of mine! I knew of their talents long before I scouted them and Shyren to be a part of my band."

"And when did you meet him?"

There was a flicker of emotion on his face. It was far too fast for the human host to catch, but Alphys had. It was a flash of panic, understandable given his true situation and background. That's not what worried her. Buried underneath it was a hint of confusion and a lost terror. What had that been about? Before she could dwell too deeply on it, Mettaton flashed the host a dazzling smile. 

"I have always known _them_." He answered. "I visited their music page many times while I was still being calibrated. "

That wasn't exactly a lie. Mettaton had put on some of Napstablook's music in the background while Alphys had made the final touches on his first body. The way he had said it worried her more. She would have to bring it up when he came in for maintenance. Luckily, the interview was beginning to wrap up, which meant Mettaton would soon dramatically kick down the door to her house to see if she had been watching him, and to piss off Undyne. He really had to stop doing that before she suplexed him beyond a quick repair. 

Right on cue, a pink boot kicked her door open. Thankfully, it remained on his hinges and her girlfriend was helping Asgore repair parts of the skeleton brothers' house. "Alphys, darling, did you see my latest interview~?" 

"O--Of course, I--I just finished watching it!" Alphys replied over the sound of the show's host prattling on about next week's guest. Satisfied, Mettaton sauntered over to the couch, taking a seat next to his friend with a flourish. "You were great, as usual. Hehe." 

"You shouldn't expect any less from me, darling." Mettaton teased. There was something in his expression that was somehow distant. 

"Is... Is there something on your mind?" Alphys hesitantly inquired. She half expected him to flippantly dismiss her concern, assure her that everything was fine, but that never came. Instead, that look on his face grew even more distant and lost. 

"There is actually." He was unusually somber and pensive, not a good sign. "When did I really meet Blooky? I know I met them face to face for the first time after darling little Frisk broke the barrier, but--"

"Wait, wait!" Alphys suddenly interrupted, feeling dread fill her body. "What do you mean you first met them then?" 

Mettaton was too startled to act offended that she would cut him off like that. "When else would I have met them? I was so busy after activation between filming and sitting around for upgrades." 

"M--Mettaton..." Puzzle pieces she didn't know were there began snapping together in her head. "D--Do you remember when we first met?" 

"Oh Alphys, what a funny question!" Mettaton laughed, but it was the furthest thing from reassuring at the moment. "When you first activated me, of course! Or programmed me, whatever you consider conception I suppose." 

Oh dear. Looking at his face, there was nothing particularly cruel or mocking about his answer. He was genuine with it, or at least believed it to be the truth. Words died in Alphys' throat for a moment as she laughed along weakly. 

"R--Right." She forced herself to agree. "Um... Hey, do you mind if I checked all of your systems today? You'll have to shut down while I figure something out." 

"Please do." 

,

\--

The further she dug, the more questions than answers Alphys received. There was absolutely no trace of the ghost Mettaton had once been at all. She knew once he had gone corporeal, there was no reversing it, but she thought there would be some shred left. Instead, she found a mess of code that was proving to be incredibly difficult to decipher, far more complex than the programs she used for more simple devices. It was almost as if Mettaton's soul had wrote itself in his circuits. Dread washed over her as she checked his memory banks, only to be met with the same mess of code found everywhere else. She had to approach this problem from a different angle when she realized his files had a time stamp. It was a simple enough task to sort through them and arrange them visually. 

The oldest files started from the moment Mettaton "turned on". 

Alphys rubbed the center ridge on her snout. Mettaton had another public appearance scheduled soon and the time she had left with him before that was barely enough to do his regular maintenance. Sighing in resignation, she left his software alone, made small repairs, and oiled his joints precisely before rebooting his system. Mettaton snapped back to life, smiling as he regained his bearings. 

"Are we all done Alphys?" He asked eagerly to which she nodded. "Great! I am due to appear for an event, something about whales, so I hope you don't mind that I need to get going." 

Mettaton slid off the lab table and transformed into his rectangular form as he would when he really needed to rush between locations. 

"Not at all!" Alphys said all too quickly, but he didn't seem to mind or notice. "I'm sorry to have taken so long with that maintenance."

"Oh darling, don't apologize! I appreciate how thorough you are. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for that wonderful trait of yours."

Mettaton pulled her into a quick hug, pressing her face against his screen momentarily. Alphys barely had time to scramble for the doors and let him zoom out without breaking another door or wall. She sighed again once he was out of sight. There was so much she had yet to learn, so much she had done in ignorance with such catastrophic results.

No, it wasn't the time to dwell on her failures. Never again. Gathering up her courage and her keys, she left the house and headed next door. Much to Undyne's annoyance, Mettaton managed to secure the house next to one she and Alphys shared for his precious Napstablook and the new Blook family farm. That kind of operation required the kind of space Mettaton's usual taste in high rise apartments could not provide. 

It was a modest two story home, with the first floor converted into a quaint little store where customers, usually Toriel, could buy fresh snails and snail paraphernalia . The back yard was where Napstablook tended to the snails, holding a decent sized enclosure for the snails to get fresh air and a small insulated shed for them to sleep in during the night. Everything had been completely open, until Napstablook was shocked to find a large number of birds gobbling up their poor snails. Now, the enclosure had a net carefully nailed around it. The front yard was half converted into a Thundersnail race track, with a tournament held every other week. That had become popular, especially with strange teenagers and adults yelling about a yellow sponge. As Alphys passed by the track, which was painted with only the flashiest of colors, she wondered how much of the house had been Mettaton's idea and vision and how much was actually Napstablook's. 

No one was at the counter when she entered, but she heard a sound sample being replayed over and over with different filters. Peering over, she could see Napstablook working on their latest remix.

"Umm..." Alphys cleared her throat, effectively catching their attention. 

"ooooh...." Napstablook moaned softly. "i'm sorry, i didn't hear you enter....." They looked her over, taking a moment to register who she was. "was i playing my music too loudly...?" 

"No, no, that's not why I'm here." She said, shaking her head. If there was one being more anxious than she was, it was certainly the ghost in front of her. "I--I just wanted to ask you about something. A--About ghosts." 

"oh...................." They looked around and moved towards a perfectly Mettaton shaped gap between counters. "come in..... if you'd like.... there's a chair back here if you want to get comfortable... or you could stay there if you don't..." 

Alphys squeezed through, holding onto her tail in case it swung around and knocked any of the displays in the glass counter down. There was nothing behind the counters besides the stairs leading to the second floor and a folding chair Napstablook previously had their laptop on. She guided her tail through the back of the chair before sitting down. The chair groaned loudly, but Napstablook didn't seem to mind. 

"what did you want to know....? i can't explain things as well as the elder blook........ oh, but i guess i'm the elder blook now, so i'll do my best..........."

"Umm... What I wanted to know was... Er, what happens when a ghost goes, uh... goes 'corporeal'?" 

Napstablook stared at her for a moment, searching for words. "....they get a body..." 

Alphys suppressed a groan to that unhelpful answer. "I mean, what exactly happens to the ghost? What do they go through?" 

"oh..... sorry, that answer wasn't very helpful...... i guess i'll explain all of it... if a ghost finds a body they like, they can possess it... and control it... but that's not really going corporeal since they can leave it if they wanted to..."

There was a long pause after that statement. Alphys wasn't sure if they were doing it to be dramatic, but that was more of a Mettaton thing to do. 

"if they like it enough... they fuse with their new body and become corporeal..."

"F--Fuse? W--What happens to the ghost? I mean, to their ghost form? To... To their memories?"

Napstablook stared at the floor sadly. Alphys steeled herself mentally. 

"ghosts aren't meant to be a permanent form. we're another step between lives... an intermediary... when a ghost goes corporeal... they become the thing they possess and...... they forget everything about being a ghost. to them, it's like they were always that thing..." 

The weight of that revelation was crushing. Alphys covered her face, her breathing erratic. 

"Oh god... I did something horrible to you without even knowing it...!" She sobbed. 

Napstablook fidgeted in place, unsure how to console her for an unknown slight. 

"oooh... don't cry... i'm sorry..." They apologized, but it only seemed to upset her further. "i don't even know what you did..." 

They didn't know. They didn't know the truth. Mettaton never told them, and now he never could. 

"Mettaton..." The words slipped out of her mouth. "Your cousin is Mettaton." 

"...oh..."

The house was completely silent, save for the hum of fans from Napstablook's laptop. 

"I'm sorry Napstablook." Alphys finally managed to say. "It's my fault your cousin is gone." 

"you don't... have to apologize." Napstablook sighed. "i knew it would happen one day. they... _he_ wasn't happy as a ghost." Tears fell from their eyes, splashing on the tile like heavy drops of rain. ".......you made him happy."

"Still, I... What I did left you all alone." 

Napstablook was silent, unable to deny that. They averted eye contact, once again staring at the floor and at their tears eating away at grout in between the tiles. It felt like forever before they spoke again. 

"...he came back for me. he remembered long enough to come back for me. that... makes me really happy to know." They began to cry again, but a small smile graced their plain features. Alphys could see how precious they were to Mettaton, even without the memories of his former self. "thank you... for telling me..." 

Alphys reflexively stood up to hug them, knocking over the chair with her tail, only to phase through them. She sheepishly rubbed the back of her head, but Napstablook seemed to appreciate the sentiment. 

"Should we tell him?" Alphys hesitantly brought up. She searched their face for any silent clues. "He's forgotten now." 

"oh no... he doesn't really need to know... the humans say it's important not to live in the past... so i guess i'll have to make new memories too." 

It was the most hopeful she had ever seen Napstablook, and that was all she could ever want from this exchange. 

\--

Late into the night, long after Alphys left the Blook family farm, Mettaton returned home. The lights in the store part of the house were already off, so he refrained from making a dramatic entrance until he was up the stairs. Still, his pink boots clicked loudly and excitedly on every step. 

"Blooky, I'm home!" He exclaimed once he caught sight of his beloved Napstablook lying on the carpet. He wasn't sure when the house became home, but it felt like anywhere Blooky made their residence was home by default. 

"oh.... welcome home, mettaton." Napstablook responded, floating over to greet him. They seemed a tad bit more cheerful than normal, bringing elation to his heart core. "how was your day?" 

Mettaton wrapped his arms around them as he always did, pulling them close. "Oh, same as always--fabulously!" He went off about his day of interviews and whales as he carried Napstablook over to the plush, pink sofa in front of the television. Still holding on to them, he absentmindedly flipped through the channels until there was some sort of space documentary playing. It was dreadfully dull, with no flashing lights or drama, but Napstablook seemed somewhat interested, and the images of the cosmos were pretty enough to keep watching. Soon enough, the program was over and Mettaton found Napstablook asleep in his arms. His battery was getting rather low, so he plugged himself in to a nearby wall socket, turned the television off, and entered sleep mode himself. 

As he charged, he dreamt. Contrary to his normal fantasies where Blooky chooses to possess a fabulous robot form much like his own, he was a ghost alongside them. The two of them were back in Waterfall, illuminated by the star-like rocks above them as they weaved around the Echoflowers, talking about everything and nothing at the same time. Once, they dived down to the depths of the water to chase the small schools of fish and resume their stroll at the bottom of the pond. He would press close to Blooky, content to be in their presence as they lay on the floor of Blooky's house to feel like garbage with the deep reaches of the universe surrounding their very beings. 

It was a strange, wonderful dream.

**Author's Note:**

> Mettaton buying the space next to Undyne and Alphys' place just to piss off Undyne from http://astrobullet.tumblr.com/post/135420841587/i-drew-a-long-ass-comic-for-a-shitty-joke-this
> 
> Haven't written in forever. Want to write more but lol writing queue.


End file.
